Pursuing Contentment

Welcome. Good to see you all here this morning. If you want to find our passage in the bulletin or on the screen behind me, we're going to be in Hebrews chapter 13 verses four through six. I believe that's on page ten seventy of those pew bibles. And if you don't have a bible and you need one, those are available to you. You're welcome to take one home. We are glad to make that a gift to you. That's the version that I've been preaching from for the last several years, and it's one that's very readable.

So we're going to read together, if you would, from Hebrews 13 verses four through six, and it's our custom to join our voices together and read aloud. You ready?

Marriage is to be honored by all and the marriage bed kept undefiled because God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterers. Keep your life free from the love of money. Be satisfied with what you have for he himself has said, I will never leave you or abandon you. Therefore, we may boldly say, the lord is my helper. I will not be afraid. What can man do to me? — Hebrews 13:4-6

This is the word of the lord. Thanks be to god.

The Poison of Discontentedness

American movies have a series of themes that are repeated over and over. And one of the most common ones is the immediate poison, immediate antidote theme. This is in Catwoman and The Princess Bride. This is in Breaking Bad. This is in Game of Thrones where there's a hero who's poisoned, and the poison works immediately. And only the villain has the antidote. And only if they can get the antidote back and apply it within a certain amount of time will the hero be saved. And the antidote, when it's given, also works immediately, which is not how poisons ever work in real life. And that traces back actually to William Shakespeare. That one goes back to Romeo and Juliet.

But this morning, I want to think about a poison that is for the human heart that does work immediately. And it's the poison of discontentedness, discontent. And this morning, we're going to look at this under an outline. I got four points: more, less, too much, and much more. Those are in your bulletin.

More

I would guess that we all know a lot about discontentedness, about being discontent. We know the feeling of buyer's remorse. You've just spent a lot of money, and what you get doesn't satisfy. You have that yucky feeling after the holidays where it's like, I just don't feel something's off with me.

The New York Times last year in February put out an article examining two trends in American culture. One was that over the last twenty years, the American economy has been the strongest economy in the world. It's grown at a rate that looks like a jet takeoff—just going up and up and up. And at the same time since the nineties, American happiness has looked like a jet plane landing, going down and down and down. We are the richest, most unhappy people in the world as a culture. Rich and unhappy.

The word for contentment literally means to be satisfied by yourself—satisfied in yourself, but satisfied by yourself regardless of circumstances. Regardless of what's happening around you, there's an ability to be satisfied. And by contrast, the slogan of discontent is one word: more. I need more. I want more from this life. I want more than what I'm experiencing right now. Any person in this room could come up with a list of things that they would like more of.

It's funny to me though to read this passage from the book of Hebrews and feel how modern this sounds. Because the writer of Hebrews is pointing out two areas that sound very modern with regard to our contentment: your station in life and your status in life. Nothing about your donkey or your fields here, but your station in life.

Look at verses four and five:

Marriage is to be honored by all and the marriage bed kept undefiled because God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterers. Keep your life free from the love of money. — Hebrews 13:4-5

Contentment with station, contentment with status.

By station, I mean with regard to whether you're single, married, divorced, or a widow—that station. This is a really hard one. Some of you have never been married, and you have felt like my life is waiting to start with that. Or I've missed out on something that everybody else seems to have that's essential for happiness. Others are married, and there's not a lot of contentment in your marriage. There's a lot of pain, a lot of misunderstanding.

There's everything but happiness in your marriage. Maybe you've heard the title or even read the book, "You Will Marry the Wrong Person." Anybody heard of this one? Very popular. And you feel like this is the biography of your life.

Some of you are divorced, and you carry deep disappointment, scar tissue that makes you either never want a relationship again or desperately want one. And some of you are widows or widowers. And the level of complexity that you feel around this topic is very deep. And I just want to say, as a pastor, I know that the church is sometimes the hardest place with this issue. It is the hardest place to be single or married, especially in the Bible Belt.

Paul tells us in First Corinthians that the best station for being able to serve the Lord is being unmarried, but nobody in the Bible Belt seems to believe that. People can communicate through nonverbals or gossip—things like, "What happened there? It's ugly." Or, "Oh, please don't do that." If you're married, you can look around and feel like everybody else's marriage looks like Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy. Or, Jim and Pam. Right?

And the writer of Hebrews knows that this is hard. That's why he writes this about the station of life.

Marriage is to be honored by all and the marriage bed kept pure, because God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterers. — Hebrews 13:4

This isn't just about lust and adultery. This is about wanting something that is not what your experience is in your station of life. There is a way to defile the marriage bed by wanting something that you don't have in such a way that it's like I'm grasping—something's in my heart. There's a way that with your discontent you go there.

Money and Contentment

The other area of discontentment is, of course, money. You'll notice we're not told to keep our lives free from money. That would be impossible. There are bills to pay. There are mouths to feed. There is gas to put in your car. You can't live without money. We're told to keep our lives free from the love of money, which I've got to say is probably just about as hard.

The old English word for avarice—or what we call greed—comes from the root "avar," which just means to grasp, to grab for things. Avarice or discontentment with money, greed is an internal grasping for what money can give you: identity, or status, or security. And we always wrestle with this. There's always a number for us, like, "How much more would be enough?" I don't know what that number is for you. I doubt it's $5,000. I bet it's a good bit more than that. I bet it's $10,000, $20,000, $50,000, $100,000. There's not a final point in life where you stop asking that question.

In Philadelphia, one of the historic buildings that is a site for tourist groups is the First Bank in America, founded by Alexander Hamilton in 1797. And one funny trivia point about that bank is that if you go to Philadelphia, it doesn't look like the original blueprints. The original design for the bank is not the building that you see today, which is kind of a normal Georgian-looking structure. The first design was a cathedral because the architect knew something: we worship money. And it was scrapped. Nobody wanted that one.

Again, church is tough for this. You probably live in a neighborhood where everybody around you is about the same socioeconomic status. That's actually how we do real estate. We all go for, like, "What's the max house I can get?" So you tend to live in neighborhoods where everybody's the same. But you go to church, and it's not like that. There are people who have much better vacations than you, who make a lot more money and a lot less money. And guess what? It's always been like that.

Go back and read the book of Acts, chapter 16. The three founders of the church in Philippi were a cop, a slave girl, and a wealthy businesswoman.

The church has never been a place where socioeconomic status is all even. It's always hard.

To these dangers, here's the call: be satisfied with what you have. And that's not actually about what you have, is it? It's about your insights. It doesn't even really matter how much you have or don't have. Everybody in this room knows what it's like to be discontent.

The long-dead Puritan wrote a book called "The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment." You don't even have to read it. You just got the whole thing right there. It's rare. It's precious. It's really hard to find. That's what that means: rare, precious, really hard to find.

You may assume then that the answer might be point number two: less. The answer to your discontentment is to want less. Kill your desires. That is not Christianity. That's Buddhism, and that's Stoicism. I want to tell you about that real quick.

We may think the problem is our desires. We just want too much. We desire too much. Desires are bad. Want less. But that's not what the Scripture is telling us.

Buddhism's message is kill your desires. And I gotta say, hard pass. No thanks. Buddhism's message is kill your desires. The message of Christianity is a God who says, at my right hand are pleasures forevermore. Buddhism is not close to Christianity. A lot of people think Buddhism and Christianity are kind of connected. No. Buddhism doesn't have a god. Christianity has a God who says, I have called you my friends. It's absolute connection. It's not disconnection. It's not numbing. Again, it's not stoicism either.

Stoicism was a school in Greek philosophy which emphasized detachment from the world, indifference, control of your emotions no matter where things are going really well or really poorly. And a lot of people assume that must be Christian like Christianity. No. No. No. No. The goal of Christianity is not self mastery. It's finding your delight, your satisfaction in God. You know, stoicism says, I'm above every need and abundance in such a way as to be self sufficient. Christianity says, delight yourself in the Lord. He'll give you the desires of your heart.

The problem is not wanting things less or wanting less things. You can tweet that one. So it's not less. But here's the other thing. It's not too much. Some of you might assume that at this point I'm gonna say the answer to your discontent is Jesus. Right? Well, can I just say, do you know a lot of contented Christians? I don't. I know a lot of discontented Christians. I know one when I look in the mirror. We know that Jesus is the right answer, but a lot of times we have forgotten what the question was. There is a sense that we're supposed to be satisfied in Jesus, but we aren't. And we can't. There's something else at work in us.

The Enemy of Contentment

Look at verse five:

Be satisfied with what you have for he himself has said, I will never leave you or abandon you, forsake you. — Hebrews 13:5

Do you recognize those words? We just sang them a moment ago in the last verse of "How Firm a Foundation." And it's funny because in that hymn, that's applied to enemies and foes. It says:

The soul on Jesus that's leaned for repose, I will not desert to its foes the soul that on that all hell should endeavor to shake. I'll never forsake.

That's right from this passage. So what is that telling us? We have an enemy. We have a foe. We have an agent of hell in our discontentment. It's an enemy. So this morning is know thine enemy. Look inside and know thine enemy. What do you see in there?

Well, here's what I see in me. It's not just that I want other things. I want them to do things for me. I want too much from good things. I want vacations that bring such a deep rest. I want cars that don't break down. I want my house to be awesome and it's never dirty. I want things that carry a weight that they were never designed to carry. We want too much from things that can't satisfy us.

There was a writer years ago who said something that doesn't quite translate, so I'm updating this. He said, a man walks into a brothel looking for God. I don't know any brothels in Raleigh, but let's update this language. We scroll Reddit looking for God. We walk into Crabtree Valley Mall looking for God. We are on Tinder or Hinge looking for God. We watch reality shows looking for God. We are on realtor.com looking for God. We are on CARFAX looking for God. We are on Facebook Marketplace looking for God. We read romance novels looking for God. You can keep going. Because all of those things are about much more than the things, aren't they?

See, we're not wrong to want stability or identity or purpose or beauty or security. Those are God-given desires. He made you for that. Another writer says, if I find there's something in me that wants more than this world can deliver on, it doesn't mean there's something wrong with my desires. It means I'm not made for this world. There's something beyond this.

Why so many discontented Christians? Why so many of us that know Jesus is the right answer but we can't remember the question? Why do we look at all the things around us and then look at Jesus and say, is this all there is? It's like the poison antidote trope in our movies. It don't work like that. It's not immediate like that. We think, oh, I should be this person who's satisfied in Jesus. And it just doesn't happen that way.

In one of the most famous passages in all the Bible about contentment, Philippians 4, here's Paul and he's writing from prison. He says:

I've learned the secret of being content in every situation. — Philippians 4

What's he talking about? The secret. That word doesn't mean God is like, nah nah nah nah nah, you can't have it. It means it's elusive.

Contentment is not a formula, friends. It is a fight. It is a fight.

So here's my last point. I know a lot of you could have preached three fourths of this sermon. I didn't need you this morning. I know. I'm not telling you anything you didn't know. But I want to say this: there's much more. There's much more for a hungry soul. Are you hungry? Are you hungry for God?

Two Clues for Hungry Souls

I have two clues in this passage for hungry souls, for dissatisfied souls.

Number one: God is my helper. I know—helper sounds so bland. Weak sauce. That is such a milquetoast word, isn't it? We associate helper with the book, or maybe the help, or Hamburger Helper, daddy's little helper. It feels diminutive and silly. But the word in the Bible is the word ezer in Hebrew, which is one of the most musclebound words in the Old Testament.

The word is used in the first pages of the Bible with the first creation of man and woman. God creates Adam—it's Genesis 2—and as he looks around and says, "There is no ezer to go with Adam. Of all the animals, there's no ezer. There's no strong help." So God creates a woman, and it's a compliment.

And 21 times in the book of Psalms, the word ezer is used for things like we sang about and read about today: strong tower, shield, my comfort and strength, my rock in the hard places. In John 14 and 15, ezer is used to describe the Holy Spirit, our helper. Like, I can't survive without him. Helper—not like optional Hamburger Helper, right? This means something really powerful about you, and I'm going to ask you to lean into this one with me.

Because all the things that we look to in other relationships, this is what is told of us about God. You're looking for your soulmate? God is your soulmate. You are made not just to kind of know some things about God and go to church, but you're made to plunge yourself in the depths of who God is. And nothing else is going to come close.

God is the best friend we crave. He is the true spouse we're looking for. He's the Mr. Darcy. He's the Jim and Pam. Everything that your soul wants in terms of being known and understood, all that deep longing that you feel in an unhappy marriage—that's not for your spouse. That's for God. And he wants to satisfy the desires of your heart. He wants you to find your deepest joy in him. You're made for it. God is my helper. Do you hear that? This is not Hamburger Helper. This is what your soul longs for.

Second point: God will never leave you or forsake you. Again, how does that help me today? That's not getting me a new car. That's not filling my bank account. But this is what is in view: God, the incredible nearness of God to you. The incredible witness of God to you.

You know, when you have little kids, they're trying to get their head around like, God's everywhere. Is God in the closet? Yeah, he's in the closet. Is God under my bed? Yeah, he's under your bed. Right? We tell our kids that, but none of us believe it. The Holy Spirit is given to believers, and he is this close right here. He is this present to you, and we don't believe it. We don't see it. We don't live this way.

The antidote to discontent is not pursuing our happiness in the God that we're made for and is this close. And that's not a formula. That's a fight.

The Gospel Means More

The good news of the Gospel is, sure, God saves us from our sins. That's great. I'm glad you know that. But it's so much more than that. God offers and invites and wants you to experience a deep and abiding personal relationship with him that's not checking a box and it's not on Sunday. It is being known.

So here's my word to you this morning: there's more. There's more. Maybe you feel like, what's the big deal with Christianity? There's more. This isn't about a quiet time, folks. I'm not trying to get you to read your Bibles. A lot of our quiet time thing is about checking a box and like, I got done my spiritual thing for today. No. No. No. I'm inviting you and calling you to something deeper in a relationship with God. You know, lingering with God.

There's a TV show—the recently deceased Catherine O'Hara was on this TV show. Let's call it Schitt's Creek. And there's an episode where a mom is showing her adult son how to cook the famous family recipe of enchiladas. And clearly, she's never made this before. She's acting like she has. And she's like, "Okay, David. All you're gonna do now is you're just gonna fold in the cheese. That's what it says on the recipe." And he's like, "What? Fold it in. What do you mean? It's like paper. How do I fold in cheese?"

She's like, you just do it, David. Fold in the cheese. And he's like, mom, I need more than this. Can you show me? She's like, you're not going to learn if I just show you everything. You're just gonna have to figure this out.

I think a lot of Christians are like, what are you talking about, pastor? What does it mean to fold in God into my life? What does that look like?

One long dead Christian said it this way: "It is the business of every day for a Christian to make yourself happy in the Lord."

To do that, that has to be folded in. It's gotta be worked into your life. It can't be added on the margins of your life. It's gotta be trained up. There's no shortcuts here. You're gonna have to give time to this. You want more of God? You're gonna have to make some room.

What would it look like to make room to just sit with God's presence and say, he is that close? What does it look like to disrupt your life and actually create space and open yourself up internally and say, God, if you're really this real, like the pastor says, I'm gonna wait. I'm gonna wait on the Lord.

That's the language of the Psalms. Waiting on the Lord, being present to the presence of God. This is stuff the old disciples of the past have talked about over and over—practicing God's presence, being still before him.

A Personal Story

True story. I woke up on a Tuesday morning a couple weeks ago, and I just felt weird. Something's wrong with me, and I couldn't place what it was. I felt this lightness, and I realized I have this strange sensation, and I think I'm happy. And I am not joking. I spent the morning going like, what is wrong with me?

I am a very discontented person. I live in the future. I am always far down the road. I am never living in today. I got plans for my plans for my plans. I got bullet points for your bullet points.

But I woke up that morning. I'm like, I can't figure out what's wrong with me, but I don't know what this feeling is. And I called my wife and I'm like, Susan, I'm really embarrassed because I realized how discontented I am. But why am I happy today?

And she's like, very gently, you spent the weekend on that silence and solitude retreat just being present to God. I was like, oh, that's what that feels like.

So I hate preaching sermons as a pastor in which I am the point counterpoint and the butt of the joke. But, man, I struggle to sit still in the presence of God. I bet you do too.

But what would it look like to be a church that enjoys God? Can you imagine?

It's like waking up and going, I don't know what that was. If you're water skiing right now on the surface of the Christian life, simple call for you this morning: there's more. There's more to be found in him. I don't care if you've been in church for a week or fifty years. Let's take off the water skis and dive in.

A Poem

I'm gonna close with a poem. I don't usually do this, but it's a good one, and it's an invitation:

In the castle of my soul is a little postern gate, where, when I enter, I am in the presence of God. In a moment, in the turning of a thought, I am where God is. When I am with God, I look deep down and high up and all has changed. The world of men is mad with jangling noises. With God, it is a great silence. But that silence is a melody, sweet as the contentment of love, thrilling as a touch of flame.

In this world, my days are few and full of trouble. I strive and have none. I seek and find not. I ask and learn not. Its joys are so fleeting. Its pains are so enduring. I'm in doubt if life be worth living. But when I enter into God, all of life has a meaning. Without asking, I know. My desires are even now fulfilled. My fever is gone in the great quiet of God. My troubles are but pebbles on the road. My joys like the everlasting hills.

So it is when I step through that gate. Big things become small and small things become great. The near becomes far and the future is near. Would you find the gate? The very spirit of God is there. Would you come in?

Prayer

Let's pray together.

There's not a person in this room who doesn't know the yuck feeling of discontent. And we live there, and everything around us makes a lot of noise. And there's also a lot of noise inside of us, and we're crying out, and we're restless, and we're deeply unhappy. And it makes our station in life and our status in life poison to us.

Father, this morning, would you grow in us a hunger for more of you? We're made for it. Lord, we believe you when you say that you are our helper and that you'll never leave us or forsake us. But, Lord, make those words into a deep reality, a deep pool in our life.

We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.